Theology Counts

Submitted by Peter Herz (United States), May 10, 2013 at 05:49

While I also think that most Muslim immigrants wish to live in peace in the USA, I also believe that Islamic theology and spirituality is a "wild card" that has a lot more to do with terrorism than most of us would like to admit.

We in the North Atlantic world are beneficiaries of a theology (Christian Reformed/Calvinist) that saw unlimited power in the hands of a sinner (all of us save Jesus Christ) as a very dangerous thing. Hence, they developed a view of temporal power as ministerial and limited by the law of God rather than magisterial and absolute. While we Americans like to stress the "secular" character of our republic, the influence of a century and a half of British and other European theologizing on the limits of power and when revolt is justified often shows through.

Islam, however, has a very different theology (and theological anthropology). Unfortunately, most of our social scientists and other members of our governing, media, and academic elites have at best the theological understanding of a ten-year-old when it comes to ANY theological tradition, his will probably be missed.

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